KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY

Colchester Castle parkrun is not known to be an easy 5000m; however this week Vicky Presland made very light work of the course, being the second lady home and the first GBRC member across the line. Vicky completed her run in 20:08, a personal best time for the distance.

Following in her mum’s footsteps and also coming away with a personal best time was Milly Presland. A few weeks ago Milly joined the Colchester Harriers and training in their young athletes program appears to be paying dividends. Milly Presland completed her parkrun in 23:09 and was the 5th lady home overall.

Also running at Colchester Castle was Charlie Keitch, completing the course in 24:47. Charlie was happy to announce this week that he will soon have an additional member of his family to follow in his footsteps – congratulations Charlie!

The club was also represented in volunteer roles at Colchester Castle. Phil and Katie Presland wrapped up warm to cheer Vicky, Milly and all of the other runners round. Also in volunteer roles from the club were Ben Ficken and Meera Rajoo-Oakley.

Below: The Presland cheer squad

Over at Harwich, Lorna Sharp was making her parkrun debut, finishing in 27:12 to be the 5th lady home to the bandstand. Also at Harwich parkrun were Malcolm Jarvis (21:44) and John Bush (30:15).

Elsewhere on Saturday… Paul Blackwell was once again in action with another marathon! Running the 100 Marathon Club Marathon down in Deal, Kent; Blackwell takes another step towards entry into the 100 Marathon Club, with this week bringing him to 147 miles raced in 2016 alone. Blackwell completed the course in 5 hours 8 minutes.

It would appear that Sunday was a true day of rest with no GBRC members known to be out at races. Given that this is a weekend sandwiched between two cross country fixtures and with distance training for marathon season starting to pick up, this was perhaps not surprising.